#pakistan

scripttorture:

‘National Style’ is a phrase Rejali coined to try and describe some of the patterns he saw in torture worldwide while he was researching his book.

It’s not so much a theory as an observation: particular countries and cultures seem to consistently favour particular torture techniques.

This doesn’t mean that torturers from these countries don’t use other techniques. It’s a general observation of the most common techniques and that which techniques are the most common varies between countries.

National Styles can change and unique tortures can still occur. What I’m hoping to do with this Masterpost is give an overview of the most common techniques in different countries.

This isn’t just for those of you setting your stories in a particular place. A lot of the sci-fi and fantasy asks I get are understandably vague about where exactly the story takes place. I’m hoping that a resource on National Styles will help you think about the cultures you’ve based your world on. Something set in the far future does not have to adhere to a particular National Style but it could serve as a useful starting point for thinking about the sorts of torture techniques that might exist in your world.

Just because I’ve excluded a country does not mean that the country is torture free. I don’t have adequate information on all countries to describe a National Style.

This is focused on the 1950s through to the present. I’m doing a separate post for World War 2 on the basis that when I tried to include it in the same post this was far too long. If I can find good sources in English for a variety of places in earlier time periods I’ll do some follow up posts on historical periods. Please keep in mind that there’s a trend towards non-scarring or ‘clean’ tortures currently, so most of these styles concentrate on techniques that rarely leave marks.

General Tortures that are common Worldwide

I’ve listed some of these in National Styles as well when I’ve felt it’s a particularly prominent feature of that country’s National Styles

-Beating

-Starvation

-Sleep deprivation

American Modern

American torture is incredibly similar to French. There isn’t any clear evidence about why exactly that is but one of the main theories is that Americans learnt at least some of these techniques during the Vietnam War. Previously, Vietnam was a French colony and there is considerable evidence that the French used these torture techniques there. Which doesn’t mean that is where the Americans got these techniques, just that it’s a possibility.

Electricity- Generally using Tasers or stun guns that are officially issued though in the past magnetos were also used. Police departments in particular experimented with many different uses of electricity in the early 1900s with many different accounts existing from that period.

Waterboarding- Waterboarding is a form of near-drowning torture that was first recorded as a torture used by the Dutch in the 1620s. It usually involves covering the mouth and nose with a cloth and restraining the victim so they are lying down with their feet above their head. Water is poured over the face and this stops the victim from breathing. Americans have been using this torture for decades.

Standing Stress Positions,with restraints- The favourite American stress position is ‘Standing cuffs’. A victim’s hands are cuffed and raised above their head until they’re standing on their toes. This also serves to deprive the victim of sleep. In some places victims were made to wear adult diapers as this was seen as especially humiliating.

Solitary Confinement- Rejali doesn’t include this as a feature of American torture and barely discusses solitary confinement at all. I’m including it on the basis that it is: so normalised in American prisons and military facilities, is used for punishment, causes intense pain, causes systematic mental and physical health problems and is allowed to continue for time periods that are frankly ludicrous.

French Modern

Electricity- French electrical torture strongly favoured use of magnetos for many years. With the technological shift away from magnetos it now seems to favour Tasers and stun guns like most modern countries.

Waterboarding- France’s history of waterboarding may be longer than America’s. There are records of waterboarding in French colonies and records of French Nazi sympathisers using waterboarding extensively during the Vichy government.

Crouching Stress Positions- Most of the stress positions I’m aware of that are particularly ‘French’ were strongly associated with the military and the French Foreign Legion. I am unsure whether they are still commonly in use today but they were 40 years ago and I’ve chosen to include them.

English Modern

The UK has very rarely used electrical torture and instead has relied on a variety of stress positions. This is unusual as most countries have regularly used electrical torture at some point even if it is no longer a feature of their National Style. It’s worth keeping in mind as a feature, should you ever have characters who experience or witness torture from different groups.

English torture has also been more varied in some respects. Torture in different colonies during the colonial period could vary dramatically, possibly a feature of the decentralisation of administration throughout the empire. Practices in Kenya were different to practices in Aden, Cyprus and Ireland. I’ve tried to focus on the overall similarities rather than list cases that only occurred in one particular place.

Positional torture without restraints- Accounts of English torture in Ireland usually contain a description of ‘Walling’. The victims were made to stand close to a wall, leaning forward. Their finger tips touched the wall but they were prevented from putting their weight against it. England has a long history of stress positions, especially in the military and a great many different positions have been used. English use of stress positions in the modern age seems to avoid restraints and instead rely on guards beating prisoners who don’t hold the stress position. Other standing stress positions apart from Walling have been used and the only common feature seems to be the lack of restraints.

Beating

Sleep deprivation- Methods of sleep deprivation were not consistent. Stress positions and sleep deprivation were often combined, but sleep deprivation was also inflicted by continually waking prisoners, use of noise and light or near-constant interrogation as in 'sweating’ or 'relay interrogation’ practices.

Exhaustion exercises- These are the practice of forcing someone to exercise until they collapse. Running, cleaning and aerobic exercises such as crouching then jumping repeatedly have all been used. Obstacle courses and forced crawling have also been used. While worthy of a place here I feel it should be noted that exhaustion exercises seem to be particularly associated with the English military and I’ve never seen an account involving the police. The exact form varies widely in English torture.

Temperature torture- This is usually done through exposure and seems to be slightly less common then the previous three methods but I felt it was worth including. Freezing showers and standing in extremely hot or cold rooms seem to be the 'usual’ methods.

English 'Five Techniques’

These were used in Ireland during the 'Troubles’ and I felt they were worth inclusion. They’re a seperate category because I haven’t found any evidence of them regularly being used in conjunction by the English or British elsewhere.

Standing stress positions

Hooding

Starvation and dehydration

Sleep deprivation

White Noise- This seems to have been uniquely used in Ireland. I’ve found no evidence of regular use elsewhere.

Russian Modern

I’m a little unsure of just how current my sources on Russia are. The following techniques were representative after the Cold War but may not all be currently in use.

Electricity- Russia like many countries that use electrical torture originally relied on magnetos but has since switched to more modern methods. I can’t find evidence for a preferred electrical source in Russia at the moment. The use of electricity is relatively recent, Soviet torture avoided electricity.

Dry choking- This was originally done using old fashioned gas masks. Manipulation of the air vent can be used to produce near-suffocation. Plastic bags are much more common now.

Beating

Suspension- Suspension by the wrists with the feet off the ground is a scarring torture that ruins hands and dislocates the shoulders. It causes permanent nerve damage on an average sized individual in around 15 minutes and acts more quickly when the victim is larger and heavier. Such practices are generally rare but this is still a common torture in Russian institutions. I am unclear on whether any sort of precautions are taken to avoid permanent damage to the victims or not.

 

Israeli Modern

Israel, like Britain, is notable for avoiding electrical torture. This is a relatively recent development with electrical torture and water based choking tortures being employed before the 1990s and not afterwards.

Positional torture using furniture- Use of child-sized furniture to deliberately cause discomfort in prisoners is, so far as I know, unique to Israel. An example would be making a victim sit in a child’s chair during a prolonged 'interrogation’. The size of the furniture makes it impossible for the victim to sit comfortably and has a similar effect to restraint torture, producing a prolonged discomfort but allowing enough movement to avoid the risk of kidney failure associated with stress positions. In some variants victims are shackled to child-sized chairs and this does seem to function as a stress position causing the tell-tale swelling in hands and feet.

Stress positions- Forced standing, including standing cuffs and forced squatting appear to be common.

Exhaustion exercises- I’ve seen reference to three specific forms of forced exercise which appear to have been in regular use since the 1980s. The first is making victims stand up and sit down repeatedly until they collapse from exhaustion. The second is the 'Bear Dance’, making victims run while holding a heavy object (sometimes a full bucket) in each hand. This exhaustion exercise is usually combined with a 'gauntlet’ of guards who hit or trip the victims as they run. The third was a sort of 'deep sit up’ performed on chairs while prisoners were handcuffed.

Hooding

Temperature torture- The Israeli style tends to use extremely hot or cold rooms rather than exposure to the elements.

Iran

Iran went through a period of using electrical torture but so far as I can tell after the 1990s it was no longer common. Electricity was used from at least the 1970s through to the 1990s.

I have not included punishments that are torture in the list but these include flogging, blinding and amputation.

Falaka- Beating the soles of the feet. This technique is common throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It has also been used historically in China. Different impliments cause different degrees of damage.

Beating

Stress Positions- My sources are unclear on what positions are favoured.

Turkish Modern

This basic combination of falaka and electricity is common throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, though different countries add different techniques to this basic mixture. Israel and Iran stand out as distinct in the region.

Falaka

 

Stress positions- I don’t have any clear indication of which stress positions are common in Turkey currently

Electricity- As previously Turkey once used magnetos but has since switched to more modern implements such as Tasers and stun guns.

Indian and Pakistani Modern

I’ve chosen to put India and Pakistan in the same section due to the overwhelming similarities in their National Styles. This may be in part due to continued conflict between the two countries resulting in a constant exchange of torture techniques. As with the similarities between French and American Styles, there’s no proof this is the case, but it’s a possibility. 

Stress positions, murgha- The victim is made to bend forward, putting their head between their knees. They are sometimes made to hold their ears. This is extremely painful and in some cases can cause bleeding from the mouth, nose and anus.

Pepper-In India and Pakistan this means insertion of irritants and spices into the nostrils, anus or vagina.

Electricity-The instruments used to generate electricity in Indian torture have varied widely since the 1950s. Magnetos, live wires, the mains and more conventional Tasers and stun guns have all been used in different regions. Pakistan has generally favoured electrical prods.

Ghotna-This is distinct to India and Pakistan. A large pestel, like a huge stone rolling pin used to grind spices, is rolled over the victim’s thighs. Sometimes police officers stand on the ghotna.

Falaka-Slightly more common in Pakistan but also used throughout India, falaka is the practice of beating the soles of the feet.

Choking-More common in India than Pakistan, dry choking is near strangulation or near suffocation.

 

Chinese Modern

I’ve had some difficulty with this one. What I’m reading suggests that Chinese torture is either not consistent across the country (which would be understandable in such a large and varied country) or that Chinese torture is changing.The result is that this is a bit vague, may be edited later and some of these practices may not be current or used everywhere in China.

Restraint tortures- I’ve seen several accounts of political prisoners being kept in retraints long term (ie for days, weeks or in some cases months). The favoured device is a combination hand and leg cuff, with a chain connecting the hands, another connecting the feet and a longer chain linking them together. This keeps the victim hunched over in an extremely uncomfortable position but allows enough movement that they do not die of kidney failure (a difference from stress positions which allows the torture to continue for much longer)

Positional torture using furniture- These include devices such as 'tiger chairs’ which are essentially restraint devices victims are strapped into and left in for prolonged periods (over 24 hours). I am unclear on whether these could have the same effect as a stress position and suspect it depends strongly on the piece of furniture and how the victim is restrained. Chairs which strap down the victim’s arms, legs and chest seem to be the most common but boards which restrain victims so they’re laying downhave also been used.

Sleep deprivation

Restriction of circulation- I’ve mentioned the old Chinese practice of 'finger-milking’ on the blog before. I’m unsure if the current practice is finger-milking but it shares similarities. Currently the victim’s hands or feet are restrained and the cuffs are deliberately made too tight, cutting off circulation and causing painful swelling in the hands or feet. In finger-milking this is accompanied with attacks to the swollen hands or feet. This is not always the case today.

 

Japanese Modern

Beating-One thing that I’ve seen particular reference to in Japanese cases that I haven’t seen elsewhere is hair pulling. There also appears to be higher use of furniture to beat suspects then in other countries.

Crushing hands with flat objects- Placing a stuff, hard, flat object like a rulerover the back of the hand and applying pressure. This produces intense pain but rarely leaves any lasting marks.

South Africa

This is predominantly focused on the post-Apartheid period. During Apartheid scarring torture was much more common and in addition to the techniques I’ve listed falaka, whipping, and pumping (forcing liquid into the stomach until it flows out of most orifices causing intense internal pain) were all used. Targeted sexual violence was and remains extremely common.

Electricity- Prods and stun guns seem to be the implements of choice.

Dry Choking- This was previously done using gas masks but now seems to be done with some sort of hooding. Plastic bags now seem to be the most common method.

Stress Positions- Predominantly forced standing.

Nigeria

Unusually for a modern state most torture in Nigeria is scarring. This may be because there is more or less complete impunity for torturers and torture is often justified by people in positions of power, citing the unrest in the north. Targeted sexual violence against women, queer people and people perceived as either is common.

Scarring beating- Using batons, gun butts, machetes, sticks, rods or cables.

Shooting extremities- Such as the leg, feet and hands.

Extraction of nails and teeth with pliers

 

Suspension by the feet- Another scarring torture.

Electricity-Amnesty describes this as using ‘battery powered objects’.

Near-strangulation- Using a rope around the neck.

Being forced to sit of lie on sharp objects- Broken glass appears to be a favourite.

Stress positions using implements- The ‘Parrot’s perch’ and a position called ‘Tabay’ are both used. The parrot’s perch has the victim’s hands tied together and their feet tied together. Their limbs are bent and a stick is inserted under the knees and over the elbows. They’re then lifted by the stick, exposing the buttocks and leaving them dangling upside down. In ‘Tabay’ the victim’s elbows are tied together and the arms are raised using a stick.

Sources:

Torture and Democracy by D Reajli, Princeton, 2009

Amnesty International Report on Torture 2016-2017

Amnesty International Report on Torture in China 2015

Amnesty International Report on Torture in Nigeria 2014

Amnesty International: The aftermath of the failed Turkey coup, 2016

Cruel Britannia: A secret History of Torture by I Cobain,

Disclaimer

Hopefully we still love this baby boy

Ali is a total comfort character to draw and was my fav character of the show

thatunleashed more slaughter in Sindh:

“If [MQM-Haqiqi leader] Afaq Ahmed is a criminal, then [MQM leader] Altaf Hussain is 100-times a bigger criminal,” bellowed Mirza. “Afaq is the second-biggest political prisoner in Pakistan after President Asif Ali Zardari…This province was here for centuries before you [Urdu-speaking migrants] came to this city hungry and naked [after Partition in 1947],” said Mirza. “You will divide Sindh over my dead body.“

*Signs of intelligent life (at least in this instant): "Mirza made the remarks at a dinner hosted by Awami National Party (ANP) leader Shahi Syed. Interestingly, when Mirza first came forward to speak to the media, Syed attempted to stop him – and, once unable, requested the media ‘to not ask sensitive questions’

from Express Tribune

SchimiHusseynShumaila Hussain  “AltafHussain is 100times criminal than AfaqAhmed” is this statement justifies to burn #Karachi  & kill it’s people? #MQM

Saad_HaroonSaad Haroon  We are not Sindhi or Mohajir or Pathan, the amount of people we sacrifice in #Karachi  everyday, we must be Aztec. Time to build a pyramid.

WajihaShamimWajiha Shamim Slept and woke up with gunshot lullaby… 

Saba_ImtiazSaba Imtiaz  Exams cancelled at KU, public transport union to not operate buses, channels estimating 7 to 9 people killed so far.

FurhanHussainFurhan Hussain  So I hear #MQM’s burning their home again? Why don’t they set themselves on fire one of these days? 

akchishtiakchishti #Karachi  for not opening today would loose Rs.12-14 billion ($140-160 million USD) business.     (my note…where did numbers come from?)

sabahat24Sabahat Zakariya  I have 2 kind of students. 1:Nalaaeq & ready to maro maaro at every insult. 2. Who laugh at slurs, work hard & get into Ivy Leagues

Or what passes for it here. In Saddar today, the heart of the city, markets were (nearly) as busy as ever, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of extra security on the streets. Still a bit of firing and tear gas, but deaths seem to have plateaued.

Last night, five whole hours passed without my checking Shaheryar’s twitter updates or even thinking about body counts. People danced and glittered and I bandied my camera and made generous use of the fact that, as an American woman, I’m allowed trips to the bar without aunty tongues a-wagging. (All the Pakistani ladies feel they must ask men to fetch their vodka 7-up.)

And it was glorious.

When I got home, there was a white jeep in front of my house, red and blue’s whirling. He was just standing there, at the head of the streets, watching me wait for the gate to open. Wasn’t he needed in other places?

All quiet on the northern front (according to twitter, which I checked at 1:04am, which was incidentally, about 30 seconds after I made it through the front door). So today…light reporting in Saddar (for the art deco story, what else?), lovely evening in a friend’s garden, and now, on my way to a fancy lawn party. When Oba asked if I wanted to go, I actually thought he meant lawn lawn. As in, the fabric. That’s when he told me I’d been in this city too long.

It just clicks on and off like an HBO action (horror?) special. Click on gunfire and strikes, and oh wait, think we’re bored now, click off. Couldn’t it have been just as easily stopped 107 deaths earlier?

bare legs. open bar. sky. no more walls. relief.

It comes only as pixelated images. There’s nothing firsthand here, nothing I can touch or smell.

I asked to go out. I wanted to take pictures–not in Qasba, but in one of the less-crazed areas. I somehow had (have?) the (naive, I’m sure) idea that my skin would protect me–I doubt anyone from any political party wants to go on record as shooting an American. Double ditto on that record thing for a Ranger. But I knew better before I even asked the city editor, who answered with a resounding no.

It’s frustrating to be stuck inside when the news is happening OUT THERE, when Express 24/7 has female anchors standing alone on deserted streets. Still standing, no signs of the massacre that we know is happening all around. She seems okay.

It’s frustrating to be stuck inside, because I’m here but only virtually. It’s frustrating to be so protected. I know the correct feeling is gratitude, but I’m a journalist, and I feel like I’m not doing my job. 

It reminds me of 9/11 in some ways, how I was glued to the TV and the net, processing the same information over and over again.

I’m constantly checking twitter, Express and Dawn homepages. I even have Express 24/7 on, and I never, like never, watch TV news.

I’m supposed to be finishing that art deco piece right now. It seems pointless. Who cares about historic preservation, the city’s on fire. If it survives–which it will, it always does (I’ve heard)–won’t that be historic preservation enough? Or maybe we should just focus on human preservation…

Ok. Turning off the TV. Closing the dozen tabs.

Gotta do some “work” now, however trite it seems. Especially because it seems I am incapable of doing anything else here. Why can’t I shake the nagging feeling that a “real” journalist would just go out anyway?

There are times when nothing else exists. You know there are rebels in Libya and refugees fleeing Syria, and today, Yemen has seen the resurrection of a dead president. You know these things.

And your day has been mundane at best. You spent it in your bedroom—hours relocating from the bed to the couch to the floor as, sentence by excruciating sentence, droplet by droplet, you squeezed out a research-heavy first draft of a 2,000 word article about Karachi’s art deco buildings. Tomorrow you will get to scrap half of it.

When you felt like you really needed a table, you went to the whole foods café, because in the afternoon it’s quieter than the artsy coffee shop, which teems with teens on summer break. And that one guy who brings his keyboard and rehearses Sarah McLachlan’s “In the Arms of the Angels” with that one girl singing, unselfconsciously, that same song over and over and over again. For hours. Don’t they realize it’s a funeral song? Plus, it’s just bad.

You ordered an Americano and a white chocolate chip gluten-free organic cupcake.

Later you went to a friend’s for dinner and a movie, only you had to leave after dinner, because the roads will be closed soon. Not in YOUR neighborhood, of course, nothing ever happens in your neighborhood. But in the driver’s neighborhood. Because there’s been a bit of unrest recently. Just a few gunmen on buses, only about 10 or so wage-workers dead and 20 injured—Pakistanis who can’t afford cars or even motorbikes, shot on their morning commute. Just a few days, it’s been maybe 72 hours or so, and 69 people dead of gunshot wounds.

Some of them are party members. Some of them aren’t. Some are refugees from a different sort of war—the kind where your children are hungry and the stores are shut, so you can’t go out to buy food, and the secular political parties are slaughtering each other and your neighbors, too, even as they rail against the bloodthirsty fundos. And the Chief Minister issues a “shoot on sight” order, which means that anyone in an open space is fair game. Except that your children are hungry, and your neighbors are dying, and you’re scared. So you risk it. You step into the open—but only long enough to flee. What’s that saying about a moving target?

But that “you” isn’t me, remember…because I am gori, to shoot me would be an international public relations disaster. Because I live in Defense, my life is worth more, and I would never take buses. Or wear the requisite burka, the uniform of women who brave public transport.

This latest violence in Karachi doesn’t even make international news, or at least not the homepage. Or at least, not any homepage but Al Jeezera’s. Not enough death, mayhem and destruction. But anyway. Tomorrow there’s a bus strike.

And today there were false rumors of a petrol strike, and stations were sucked dry, with cars winding a kilometer down the road and hundreds of pedestrians crowding each pump, brandishing plastic containers of the earth’s glistening plasma. (The dinosaurs are rolling in their graves…or should that be, rising from their graves?)

Was it only yesterday that I bought a dozen DVDs at Boat Basin? Less than $1 a movie, the owner telling me proudly how he purchases them overseas, fills his suitcase with Best Buy and Wal-Mart and the latest in burners. “Even the British Ambassador shops here,” he said. Under the harsh fluorescents, this bizarre bazaar culture.

Eating a nutella sandwich at Roadside, having a coffee with friends who are about to escape the anxiety. Hunza, Karimabad. Yeah, I had that ticket too.

But here, the real café culture is low-brow. It’s the hotels and the teahouses, the charpoy’s and plastic chairs. It’s men, only men. Men out till all hours of the night, men discussing sex, politics, money and love. If you’re poor with a penis, the city’s yours for the living. Except that for a few days (before I even realized), it’s been yours for the dying.

Had to see the lines at the pumps and even then, I didn’t understand until gunmen fired on a TV team’s van. 

All I could see was my stifling room, so that, on the first day of the slaughter, I climbed a rickety, homemade ladder to the roof, danced for hours to the world inside my ipod. The roof makes an ideal studio, except there are too many tiny rocks. But I danced for years, I can ignore the pain. Then on my back, gazing into the infinite. A single flash, catch a ride. (That night in Rumbor, there were so many rides…)

The clouds were amazing, dense and mobile and so close. I got locked out, and once I climbed down to the veranda, I had to bang the window to be let in. It was 2am.

Tonight you have hot flashes from all the sugar you’ve consumed. Tonight you are worried about the Afghan kid you’ve been interviewing, the one who lives in the firing. You’re wishing he would return your texts.Tonight there are no roofs and on your route home, no gunfire. Not even any cops. The roads are eerily deserted at 11pm, except when you pass the one Caltex station that isn’t dry, because when you saw it three hours earlier a whole new truckload was being piped into the ground. And still, there are lines—longer even now—but the only people crowding the pump are station employees in red shirts. About twenty of them, trying to maintain law and order, you guess.

Chief Minister of Sindh, Qaim Ali Shah issued ‘shoot at sight’ orders in a bid to curb growing violence in the city.

Um…what happened to violence begets violence?

With 69 dead in 3 days from political and random violence…

thekarachikidKhaver Siddiqi  So whats tomorrow going to be like?   

Saba_ImtiazSaba Imtiaz  Aaj TV interviewing police officers on duty in Karachi - saying they have no orders, no backup cars, no idea.

ammaryasirAmmar Yasir   At AKUH ground track, watching kids practice cricket. Some peace in the middle of all the madness.

mirza9Shaheryar Mirza  Gunmen open fire at Express News 24/7 team in Karachi, reporting on bloodbath. reporter Sabin Agha and rest of team ok

ammaryasirAmmar Yasir   No strike tomorrow but thanks for participating in the drill exercise. Appreciate your patience.  

shakirhusainshakir husain  generator fuel. check. car tanks full. check. water bottles. check. carton of cigs. check. diapers. check. dog food. check. 

ammaryasirAmmar Yasir   Why we need to fear from Talibinization of Karachi when liberal/democratic parties are so actively contributing to chaos and violence

mirza9Shaheryar Mirza  Breakdown of target killings by party Jan-Jun-2011: MQM(H) 16, MQM 77, PPP 26, ANP 29,PML-n 1, PML-F 1 Total political killings:150

*important to note that this was two days ago. add another 39 or so in there…

Aunty Disco Project (ADP) announced their break up shortly after lead singer Omar Akhtar decided to move to New York to study journalism at Columbia University.

ADP is the stuff of Karachi legend: 90s alternative hooks, complicated rhythmic shifts, borrowings from genres as vast as samba, disco and garage, stellar musicianship and genuine tragedy. Established in 2006, the band reached critical mass when “Sultanat”, a raucous, anti-government rock anthem, replete with eastern rifts and psychedelic delivery, showcased on “Coke Studio” in 2010.  Sped up at Saturday’s Pakistan American Cultural Center show, the song manhandled the crowd, nearly spilling the percussion kit onto the tweensters in the front row. Because at the final ADP show, it was really about the kids.

Take the Pathan sisters, Amna, 14, and Laila, 15 – ADP’s self-proclaimed biggest fans. “They’re the first band I ever saw in concert,” said Laila. “The line-up has changed. The old stuff was kind of grungy and interesting, and the new stuff is upbeat and happier. And the really cool thing, you can see how Omar has matured in the lyrics he writes now.”

She’s followed ADP since she was 10, catching every show that didn’t break curfew. Last week, she had three nightmares that she’d missed the final show.

Keep reading.